“I understand,” Ben said, shaking his head in disgust. “She really got you here.” He pointed at my cheek.
“What do you mean?” I ran my fingers along my cheek, feeling the puckered skin and the stickiness of blood. “Is it bad?”
“Bad enough it needs to be cleaned.”
“You mean sterilized. I may have to go through a series of rabies shots.” I elbowed Ben in the ribs. “So are you ready to call Mom and Dad now?”
“They’re all the way up in the mountains, remember? Probably well into their fourth or fifth martini by now.”
“Believe me, Ben, she does not have your best interest at heart. You need to stay way the hell away from her. She is dangerous.”
Ben’s face beamed dark red in anger. “After tonight I’m gonna run that little bitch out of town if I have to drive her to Norfolk myself and load her up on an aircraft carrier headed for the Persian Gulf.”
“That’s a pie-in-the-sky dream if ever I heard one. You can avoid her, Ben, but I have to live with her.”
“No way I’m gonna let you live with that whack job.”
“And just what the hell do you think we can do about it in the middle of the school year?” I asked, hearing the desperation in my voice.
“Students are always flunking out after the first semester, Kitty. And others transfer to different schools. They’ll have an opening somewhere, maybe not a single and it might not be your first choice . . .”
Something that resembled hope stirred in my belly. “Maybe.”
Thompson stuck his head out of the door. “Brr, it’s cold out here,” he said, stepping onto the porch. “Is everything okay with you two? Archer said I should come and check on Kitty, that she and Emma got in a fight.” When he saw my face, he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him. “What the hell happened to you? We need to get that cleaned up.”
Thompson whisked me off to my room for some first aid and much-needed psychotherapy. Forty-five minutes later, we came back downstairs feeling slightly rejuvenated and hungry for dinner.
Maddie and Archer had found place cards amongst my mother’s party supplies, and arranged them so Emma and I were across from each other but at opposite ends of the table. Illuminated by the dozen votive candles that separated us, I could see the scratches on her forearm when she raised her fork to her mouth for a bite of salad. Unlike my battle wounds, the skin did not appear to have been broken, just a series of red lines crisscrossing her arm. Cat scratches.
As usual, Emma monopolized the conversation during dinner. A discussion about our generation’s lack of ethics led to a debate over whether it was equally acceptable for a woman to satisfy her sexual needs with random pickups in the same way some men do. Whether to get a rise out of Ben or whether she simply enjoyed watching the rest of us squirm, she cited instance after instance of her more spontaneous encounters. Every time an attempt was made to change the subject, Emma maneuvered the conversation back to sex. We all sprang from our chairs with relief when Archer announced we were only thirty minutes away from midnight.
With all the leftovers stored in the refrigerator and the dishes placed in the dishwasher, we gathered in the living room to watch the ball drop on television.
“I could only find two flutes,” Emma said, offering the tray of champagne to Ben and me before anyone else. “And since you’re the host and hostess, the privilege belongs to you.”
Ben and I sipped the champagne with the same sense of obligation we had to wear the silly hats and blow the noisemakers Reed and Maddie brought. The strain of having Emma in the house had placed a damper on our evening. While the others participated in the traditional round of kisses and best wishes for the New Year, Ben and I stood together at the edge of the crowd.
“Get your coat, man,” Thompson said, slapping Ben on the back. “Time for fireworks. We need your great pyrotechnics expertise.”
“I think I’ll sit this one out,” Ben said to Thompson. “But Spotty and Reed are both Eagle Scouts. You’re in good hands with them.”
While the guys separated their fireworks into piles on the dormant winter grass, the rest of us gathered along the porch railing. With the exception of our voices, and those echoing from a party across the creek, the night was quiet, so much so I almost hated to disturb it with the blasts from our rockets.
“It’s snowing,” Archer said, sticking her hand out to catch a flake. “Maybe we’ll get snowed in and have to spend another night.”
I cringed at the thought of being trapped with a psychopath. I watched Emma rub her body all over Ben’s, cozying up to him against the cold. Sensing she had an audience, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down, making certain I could see her stick her tongue in his mouth. Irritated, he pushed her away, and whispering loud enough for everyone to hear, reminded her they were no longer in a relationship.
Things got a little fuzzy for me after those first few explosions of color. The only thing I remember—other than at the end when Spotty lit a whole package of firecrackers and I mistook them for gangsters shooting at us with machine guns—was Ben slamming Emma up against a porch column. I’d never blacked out before. It was as if my mind had fallen off a cliff into an abyss. A bottomless pit of nothingness.
Twenty-Two
Ben and I did a quick search of the house. When we didn’t find Emma in any of the obvious places—sleeping on the sofa in the game room or drinking coffee in the kitchen—and when she didn’t answer any of our texts or calls, we woke the others and combed the place, looking under beds and in closets. One by one, we gathered beside the window in the kitchen to stare at the lone set of footprints in the snow.
Thompson grabbed the coffee pot and began filling it with water. “Okay, so let’s try to piece this thing together. Who was the last person to see Emma?”
Maddie rolled her eyes. “That’s a stupid question. We were all on the porch when Ben banged Emma’s head up against the column, and we all saw him follow her inside and up the stairs afterwards.”
Reed dropped his arm from around Maddie’s shoulders. “Let’s not be so quick to jump to conclusions,” he said, moving away from her and closer to Ben.
Maddie glared at me. “I’m guessing you don’t remember anything since Thompson had to literally carry you upstairs to bed.”
“Retract the fangs, Maddie,” Spotty said, laying a hand on my shoulder for support. “Being nasty isn’t going to help anything.”
“She’s right, though.” I rubbed my eyes as if clearing them would restore my memory. “I remember very little about being out on the porch. And nothing from when we came inside.”
“That’s not like you, Kitty,” Archer said. “You’ve never been one to drink too much.”
“And I didn’t last night. I had a few beers, spaced out during the evening, and a glass of wine with dinner.” I locked eyes with Ben. “Oh, and that shot of bourbon to calm my nerves after the fight with Emma.”
“Are you sure you only had one shot?” Maddie asked, her lip curled up in distaste. Maddie had gone to bed as one of my favorite friends and woken up a prima donna bitch.
“Okay, that’s enough. Everybody stop arguing.” Reed wrapped his fingers through the handles of six coffee mugs and carried them over to the table. “Let’s all sit down and try to figure this thing out together.”
Spotty poured everyone coffee while Thompson passed out the glazed doughnuts.
“The reality is that none of us should have been drunk after all we had to eat,” Ben said, hanging his head. “Myself included.”
Maddie tore off a tiny piece of doughnut and pointed it at my brother. “Exactly, Ben. None of us were drunk except you and your sister.”
Thompson folded the top back on the box of doughnuts and placed them on the kitchen counter. “Maddie, your blame and sarcasm are counterproductive. If you can’t offer anything constructive, maybe you should leave the room.” He turned his back on her. “Katherine, you were only a little buzzed before dinner,
and you had plenty to eat, including two helpings of white chocolate mousse. I had no idea you were in such bad shape until I came up to the porch after setting off the fireworks. Did you have only the one glass of champagne?”
“Wait a minute,” Archer said, sliding her chair back from the table. “Ben didn’t seem wasted to me either until after the champagne.” She picked up one of the flutes from the tray of empty glasses on the counter and sniffed it.
“Don’t waste your time,” Maddie said to Archer, nodding toward the glasses. “We washed those last night.”
Archer set the glass back down on the tray and ran her hand on the counter and behind the sink. “What’re you looking for?” I asked her when she dropped to her knees and began crawling around on the floor.
“My ring, the sapphire my parents gave me for graduation. I took it off when I was doing the dishes, but I must’ve put it back on. It’s probably upstairs.” She stood and wiped her hair out of her face. “Anyway, remember how Emma insisted that Ben and Kitty drink from the only two flutes? I’ll bet she drugged them.”
Reed nodded. “Which would definitely explain why they both got so hammered so quickly. It was probably Liquid X, easy enough to find if you’re into that kind of thing.”
Maddie shook her head in disbelief. “Give me a break. Nobody drugged anybody. Why can’t you just admit it, Ben? You had too much to drink, lost your temper, and now a girl has gone missing.”
I set my coffee mug down and stared across the table at her. “Why are you being such a bitch? Despite all of your insinuations, nobody in this room did anything to hurt Emma. There’s a single set of footprints leading down to the dock. Single means one, Maddie. If those footprints belong to Emma, she probably got in a boat with somebody and went somewhere.”
No one dared speculate on the other possible scenarios. Emma was way too narcissistic to commit suicide, but I would not have ruled out the likelihood of an accident.
“And if we’re planning to call the police,” Ben added, “we better do it soon, before the sun comes out and melts the snow.”
“What should we tell them?” Spotty asked.
Ben set his eyes on Maddie. “The truth. We need to tell the police everything about what happened last night so they can help us find Emma. I’m convinced this is just another one of her stunts, and I can’t wait to see her in person so I can kick her ass out of our lives for good. But if something did happen to her, I want the police to see those footprints.”
Two patrol officers arrived in less than thirty minutes. With bloodshot eyes and breath that reeked of whiskey, they dragged their dumpy bodies up our front steps. With one quick glance at the footprints, interested only in wrapping up the case in time for an early lunch, Officers Collins and Hathaway jumped to the conclusion of suicide. It took a fair amount of psychological profiling from Thompson to convince them that, while she might be a troubled young woman, Emma was way too self-centered to be suicidal.
“With all due respect, young man,” Collins said to Thompson, “if you know this woman so well, why don’t you tell us where she is?”
Ben stepped in front of Thompson. “Listen, Officer, until about a month ago, Emma was my girlfriend. So I know her well enough to be fairly certain she went off somewhere to party and is crashed on someone’s sofa, or in their bed, as we speak.”
The other officer, Hathaway, placed his hands on his hips. “Well, if that’s the case, son, why the hell did you call us?”
“Because of the footprints,” I said, speaking up for the first time. “If, for some reason, Emma does not show up, and it turns out that something did in fact happen to her, the footprints are evidence—evidence that will be gone by noon.”
“Besides, we don’t even know for sure that they’re Emma’s footprints,” Archer added.
I nodded. “The one thing that doesn’t make any sense to me in all of this is that Emma’s things are gone. She either put them in her car or she took them with her. But why would she do that if she was just going to have a drink with a friend?”
“What friend?” Collins asked. “She’s not from around here, is she?”
“No, but she does know someone.” I walked over to the window. “George Turner. He lives right over there.” I pointed across the creek. “He was here last night. For about an hour. But that was early, around seven or so.”
Collins furrowed his eyebrows. “George Turner? As in Holden Turner, the commonwealth attorney’s son?”
“He’s the one,” I answered.
“Have you had any communication with him this morning?” Hathaway asked.
“No, but it’s not even ten o’clock.” When Ben saw the stern look on Hathaway’s face, he whipped his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll send him a text now.”
“Don’t send him a text, boy,” Collins said to Ben. “Call him. And if he doesn’t answer his cell phone, try his house line.”
We all held our breath while Ben dialed both numbers and left messages on each line.
“Holden Turner is an important man around these parts. Looks like we have no choice but to call in the big guns on this one,” Collins said to his partner, who nodded in agreement.
While Hathaway paced up and down in front of the fireplace in the living room, snapping orders at dispatch to call in the detectives, Collins went outside to his patrol car for supplies. From the kitchen window, we watched him take pictures with a digital camera and spray something out of an aerosol can onto various footprints along the line from the house to Emma’s car and down to the dock.
Reed and Maddie disappeared to their room and returned a little while later with their overnight bags strung across their shoulders. I could see the tension in Reed’s face when he pulled Ben and me aside. “I’m sorry about all this. I guess a person’s true character really shows itself during a crisis.”
“Don’t sweat it, buddy,” Ben said, squeezing Reed’s shoulder. “Maddie doesn’t know us that well. I can only imagine what she thinks. If you don’t mind, though, will you check with the police to see if they have any questions for you before you leave?”
Reed nodded. “I’m gonna drive Maddie to Richmond and come straight back.”
Ben smiled at his friend. “With any luck, by the time the police are through with you, Emma will be back and we can all go home to Richmond together.”
“Yeah dude, wouldn’t that be nice?” Reed said, offering Ben a high five. “We should auction off the opportunity to be the first to slug her when she shows. I can promise you I’ll be the highest bidder.”
***
Detectives Bonnie Breton and Eric Erikson stepped from their unmarked car and took command of the scene with the experience and confidence the patrol officers lacked. Right away, Detective Breton honed in on the most obvious detail that Humpty and Dumpty failed to notice. “What happened to your face?”
“I had a fight with my roommate,” I said to her, running my fingers along the welt on my cheek.
Gently, in a way that reminded me of my grandmother, the detective lifted my chin toward the light. I lowered my eyes and watched her as she examined the scratch. With her crooked teeth and double chin, there was nothing pretty about the female detective, but I found her slate-blue eyes warm and full of compassion, a sentiment her partner seemed to lack.
Detective Ericson curled his lip up as if he’d gotten a whiff of rotting fish. “Now let me guess. Your roommate and the missing person are one and the same?”
I shrugged. “Naturally.”
To make certain the detectives understood the whole scope of the situation, Ben and I described our relationship with Emma, and for the second time that day, Thompson presented his theory about Emma’s psychopathic behavior. Both Breton and Ericson seemed to believe our stories, although they cautioned us that their opinions might change if Emma didn’t show up in a couple of days.
“You did the right thing in calling us,” Detective Breton assured Ben and me. “Typically we don’t respond so quickly to miss
ing-person calls, but having only one set of footprints leading to the dock complicates the situation. There are several things that concern me here, enough to do a little more digging before I’m willing to assume Emma got in a boat and took off with her lover.”
“I’d be willing to bet my next pay she’s just shacking up with some lucky bastard she met along the way.” Ericson’s chuckle was awkward in the midst of our silence. He cleared his throat. “But maybe she just went down to the dock to get some fresh air, fell and hit her head, and knocked herself out on the way overboard.”
Detective Breton turned to Ben and me. “Although it’s too late to test for it now, judging from the way the two of you described your experiences last night, I believe there’s a good chance you were drugged. And yes, probably with Liquid X or a similar substance. Do you think it’s possible Emma took some herself?”
I thought back to the night, during rush last year, when I found Emma and Ben with their noses in a mountain of cocaine. “It wouldn’t be the first time she used drugs,” I said to the detectives, avoiding my brother’s gaze.
“Then I can think of a hundred scenarios that might have happened to a drugged person stumbling around on a dock on a night as pitch-dark as last night.” Breton looked pointedly at Ericson. “Why don’t you and I have a look around outside while these kids keep trying to get in touch with George Turner?”
I glanced toward Maddie who’d been sitting on the edge of the sofa, during our chat with the detectives, waiting to pounce on the first opportunity to get the hell out of our lives. “Detective Breton, do you think it’s possible to get whatever statement you need from my friends before you go down to the dock? Maddie and Reed have to get back to Richmond for a family commitment this afternoon,” I lied, anything to get the hostile bitch out of our house.
“Of course.” She handed a form to both Maddie and Reed. “If you would please write down whatever information you think might be pertinent, including your contact information, then you’re free to leave.” She started for the door, but then turned back around. “This might sound a little strange, but given the circumstances, it would be helpful if you could leave the shoes you were wearing last night so we can make prints. We’ll get them back to you as soon as we can.”
Saving Ben Page 20